| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="settings-storage">
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| 4 | <title>Storage Settings</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | The <b outputclass="bold">Storage</b> category in the VM
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| 9 | settings enables you to connect virtual hard disk, CD/DVD, and
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| 10 | floppy images and drives to your virtual machine.
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| 11 | </p>
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| 12 | <p>
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| 13 | In a real computer, so-called <i>storage
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| 14 | controllers</i> connect physical disk drives to the rest of
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| 15 | the computer. Similarly, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> presents virtual storage
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| 16 | controllers to a virtual machine. Under each controller, the
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| 17 | virtual devices, such as hard disks, CD/DVD or floppy drives,
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| 18 | attached to the controller are shown.
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| 19 | </p>
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| 20 | <note>
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| 21 | <p>
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| 22 | This section gives a quick introduction to the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>
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| 23 | storage settings. See <xref href="storage.dita#storage"/> for a full
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| 24 | description of the available storage settings in <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>.
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| 25 | </p>
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| 26 | </note>
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| 27 | <p>
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| 28 | If you have used the <b outputclass="bold">Create Virtual
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| 29 | Machine</b> wizard to create a machine, you will normally
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| 30 | see something like the following:
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| 31 | </p>
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| 32 | <fig id="fig-storage-settings">
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| 33 | <title>Storage Settings for a Virtual Machine</title>
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| 34 | <xref href="images/vm-settings-harddisk.png" format="png" platform="htmlhelp">
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| 35 | <image href="images/vm-settings-harddisk.png" width="10cm" placement="break">
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| 36 | <alt>Storage Settings for a Virtual Machine</alt>
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| 37 | </image>
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| 38 | </xref>
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| 39 | <image platform="ohc" href="images/vm-settings-harddisk.png" width="10cm" placement="break">
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| 40 | <alt>Storage Settings for a Virtual Machine</alt>
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| 41 | </image>
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| 42 | </fig>
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| 43 | <p>
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| 44 | Depending on the guest OS type that you selected when you created
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| 45 | the VM, a new VM includes the following storage devices:
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| 46 | </p>
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| 47 | <ul>
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| 48 | <li>
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| 49 | <p><b outputclass="bold">IDE controller.</b> A virtual
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| 50 | CD/DVD drive is attached to device 0 on the secondary channel
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| 51 | of the IDE controller.
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| 52 | </p>
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| 53 | </li>
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| 54 | <li>
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| 55 | <p><b outputclass="bold">SATA controller.</b> This is a
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| 56 | modern type of storage controller for higher hard disk data
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| 57 | throughput, to which the virtual hard disks are attached.
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| 58 | Initially you will normally have one such virtual disk, but as
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| 59 | shown in the previous screenshot, you can have more than one.
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| 60 | Each is represented by a disk image file, such as a VDI file
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| 61 | in this example.
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| 62 | </p>
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| 63 | </li>
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| 64 | </ul>
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| 65 | <p>
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| 66 | If you created your VM with an older version of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>,
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| 67 | the default storage layout may differ. You might then only have an
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| 68 | IDE controller to which both the CD/DVD drive and the hard disks
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| 69 | have been attached. This might also apply if you selected an older
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| 70 | OS type when you created the VM. Since older OSes do not support
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| 71 | SATA without additional drivers, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> will make sure
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| 72 | that no such devices are present initially. See
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| 73 | <xref href="harddiskcontrollers.dita#harddiskcontrollers"/>.
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| 74 | </p>
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| 75 | <p>
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| 76 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> also provides a <i>floppy
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| 77 | controller</i>. You cannot add devices other than floppy
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| 78 | drives to this controller. Virtual floppy drives, like virtual
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| 79 | CD/DVD drives, can be connected to either a host floppy drive, if
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| 80 | you have one, or a disk image, which in this case must be in RAW
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| 81 | format.
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| 82 | </p>
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| 83 | <p> You can modify these media attachments freely. For example, if you want to copy some files
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| 84 | from another virtual disk that you created, you can connect that disk as a second hard disk,
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| 85 | as in the above screenshot. You could also add a second virtual CD/DVD drive, or change where
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| 86 | these items are attached. The following options are available: </p>
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| 87 | <ul>
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| 88 | <li>
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| 89 | <p>
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| 90 | To <b outputclass="bold">add another virtual hard disk, or a
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| 91 | CD/DVD or floppy drive</b>, select the storage
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| 92 | controller to which it should be added (such as IDE, SATA,
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| 93 | SCSI, SAS, floppy controller) and then click the
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| 94 | <b outputclass="bold">Add Disk</b> button below the
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| 95 | tree. You can then either select <b outputclass="bold">Optical
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| 96 | Drive</b> or <b outputclass="bold">Hard
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| 97 | Disk</b>. If you clicked on a floppy controller, you
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| 98 | can add a floppy drive instead. Alternatively, right-click on
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| 99 | the storage controller and select a menu item there.
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| 100 | </p>
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| 101 | <p>
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| 102 | A dialog is displayed, enabling you to select an existing disk
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| 103 | image file or to create a new disk image file. Depending on
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| 104 | the type of disk image, the dialog is called
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| 105 | <b outputclass="bold">Hard Disk Selector</b>,
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| 106 | <b outputclass="bold">Optical Disk Selector</b>, or
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| 107 | <b outputclass="bold">Floppy Disk Selector</b>.
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| 108 | </p>
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| 109 | <p>
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| 110 | See <xref href="vdidetails.dita#vdidetails"/> for information on the image
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| 111 | file types that are supported by <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>.
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| 112 | </p>
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| 113 | <p>
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| 114 | For virtual CD/DVD drives, the image files will typically be
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| 115 | in the standard ISO format instead. Most commonly, you will
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| 116 | select this option when installing an OS from an ISO file that
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| 117 | you have obtained from the Internet. For example, most Linux
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| 118 | distributions are available in this way.
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| 119 | </p>
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| 120 | <p>
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| 121 | Depending on the type of disk image, you can set the following
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| 122 | <b outputclass="bold">Attributes</b> for the disk image
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| 123 | in the right part of the Storage settings page:
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| 124 | </p>
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| 125 | <ul>
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| 126 | <li>
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| 127 | <p>
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| 128 | The <b outputclass="bold">device slot</b> of the
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| 129 | controller that the virtual disk is connected to. IDE
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| 130 | controllers have four slots: primary device 0, primary
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| 131 | device 1, secondary device 0, and secondary device 1. By
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| 132 | contrast, SATA and SCSI controllers offer you up to 30
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| 133 | slots for attaching virtual devices.
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| 134 | </p>
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| 135 | </li>
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| 136 | <li>
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| 137 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Solid-state Drive</b>
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| 138 | presents a virtual disk to the guest as a solid-state
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| 139 | device.
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| 140 | </p>
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| 141 | </li>
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| 142 | <li>
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| 143 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Hot-pluggable</b> presents a
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| 144 | virtual disk to the guest as a hot-pluggable device.
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| 145 | </p>
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| 146 | </li>
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| 147 | <li>
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| 148 | <p>
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| 149 | For virtual CD/DVD drives, you can select
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| 150 | <b outputclass="bold">Live CD/DVD</b>. This means
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| 151 | that the virtual optical disk is not removed from when the
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| 152 | guest system ejects it.
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| 153 | </p>
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| 154 | </li>
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| 155 | </ul>
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| 156 | </li>
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| 157 | <li>
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| 158 | <p>
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| 159 | To <b outputclass="bold">remove an attachment</b>,
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| 160 | either select it and click on the
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| 161 | <b outputclass="bold">Remove</b> icon at the bottom, or
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| 162 | right-click on it and select the menu item.
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| 163 | </p>
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| 164 | </li>
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| 165 | </ul>
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| 166 | <p>
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| 167 | Removable media, such as CD/DVDs and floppies, can be changed
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| 168 | while the guest is running. Since the
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| 169 | <b outputclass="bold">Settings</b> window is not available
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| 170 | at that time, you can also access these settings from the
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| 171 | <b outputclass="bold">Devices</b> menu of your virtual
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| 172 | machine window.
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| 173 | </p>
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| 174 | </body>
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| 175 |
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| 176 | </topic>
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